Persona

With the help of just lines, coordinates and a couple of conditionals, this generative image manages to show the depth of an individual, which goes beyond the person - seen from a psychological side. This “deeper facet” illuminates upon clicking, implying that it is revealed by getting to know the individual on a more intimate level, and not necessarily from the beginning of a relationship. It can also be seen that as soon as the image is executed, the “person”, represented by the outline of the face, is built as the frameCount increases while, from behind, it is illuminated by an ellipse that, altered by the random function, appears to be moving.

Technical, aesthetic and conceptual development

“Persona” is a work that seeks to encapsulate the reality of individuals as human beings, as beings that feel and think. When doing it, I let myself be carried away by introspection and reflection.

Carl Gustav Jung was a famous Swiss psychiatrist, psychologist, and essayist who developed a psychoanalytic theory. He designated the external attitude and character with the word person; and to the internal attitude, with the word anima, soul. The person is the image that we give to others, the “public mask” that each individual possesses, which does not have to be seen as a resource of falsehood, but as a “layer” that is shown to the world before sharing one’s own thoughts and emotions. The soul is our most intimate and profound way of being. His interesting approach inspired my work.

Taking into account Marshall McLuhan’s text, “The medium is the message” (which does not emphasize the content of something but the meaning, what is interpreted from it and the degree to which it influences society or history), I decided that the message that my work leaves, or at least the one that I want it to leave, is not the interaction - the clicking itself. The proposal is that behind the person, the “mask”, we can find a very diverse world of ideas and opinions. Beyond what can be done with the image, I am interested in what the viewer takes away and their point of view.

As I mentioned earlier, clicking on the image reveals what the individual does not so easily show – their unconscious, their “soul.” “The code as a performative speech act” by Inke Arns is another text that caught my attention and enlightened me, in some way. The author of this text refers to “software art” as “an artistic activity that, thanks to its own medium, allows critical reflection on software (and its cultural impact)”, different from “generative art”, which “focuses on the result created by a generative process”. Taking again my work, “Persona”, my goal is for it to be considered software art: precisely that, in addition to the viewer analyzing the final piece – the image itself, they focus at the same time on the code, reflecting and questioning it. “Why can I see what is inside the person’s face only when clicking, that is, in the “draw”; and not all the time, that is, in the “setup”, where everything is executed once and does not move from its place?” The person – the “contour” only interprets the mood, character and way of acting of an individual in a certain environment, but does not necessarily reveal the philosophy and morals of the same. Furthermore, in my opinion, the person is created and transformed as we grow, mature and form our personality in different areas. I would like to add that my work does not allude to the idea of ​​the person being something static, but quite the opposite: depending on the situation, humans have the ability to control what aspects of all those who make up us we want to show.

Finally, to create this work I was also inspired by Charles Csuri and his work. I find his way of creating quite interesting and resonates with me: he began with an original idea that came from not only his imagination, but also his emotions; and a vision of how he wanted to show it, and chose the most visually effective way to communicate this idea. This great artist worked a lot with human faces and bodies and, by observing his works, my idea and how I wanted to capture it in the code and in the image became stronger.

Literature

MCLUHAN, Marshall. (1964). “El medio es el mensaje”.

ARNS, Inke. (2005). “El código como acto de habla performativo”.